


Winning Osaka

by Imadeamistake



Category: Professional Wrestling, 新日本プロレス | New Japan Pro-Wrestling
Genre: Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-20 00:39:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15522249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imadeamistake/pseuds/Imadeamistake
Summary: Hiromu and Will Ospreay go out on the town.





	Winning Osaka

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chasesstarlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasesstarlight/gifts).



Black clouds hung in the Chaos locker room at Dominion when Will came back from his title defense. His last title defense.

Okada wasn't there. Getting ready for his own match probably.

Will avoided all commiseration from his stablemates trying not to let his red face escalate to tears. He sat in a self-imposed isolation and let the grief of the loss drill through him until he was hollow with it.

Okada never came back to the locker room at all. After the main event, a sheepish young lion retrieved his bags and bowed as he fled from the room. Will understood.

He got on the first bus going and barely noticed the blaring skyline of Osaka whirling past as they were driven back to the hotel. Screens and windows and street lights shining in a mad blaze of colours. Tomorrow he would be back in the gloom of London's grey stone and red brick walls. Grim and enduring. 

His suitcase was too light. The title wasn’t in it anymore. He didn't even bother unpacking when he got to his room. Just stripped, set his alarm for 6:00 am and collapsed on the bed. His neck registered its discontent at his life choices. He turned his phone on again and changed the alarm to 6:30 am. He could get breakfast at the airport after he’d checked in.

New Japan was changing. And the strangeness of it kept him awake. What the fuck kind of world was it where Chris Jericho of all people was the IWGP Intercontinental champion? Where Okada had lost had the Heavyweight title to Kenny Omega? Compared with that, the loss of his own belt wasn’t as game changing. It still hurt though. The room felt empty without it and sleep came uneasily.

A sharp knock on the door woke him. Will checked the time. It was well past midnight.

Unless Red Shoes was outside, title in hand, to say there had been some terrible mistake then whoever was out there was unwelcome. Will threw on a dressing gown hanging in the hotel's wardrobe for decency’s sake and wrenched open the door already annoyed.

"Good Evening!"

He was dreaming. Why would the Jr Heavyweight title be floating at his door otherwise?

Hiromu Takahashi sprang into his line of sight with a wide grin and eyes like fireworks.

Will tried to slam the door but Hiromu was ready for that and flung himself into the gap with abandon.

"It’s 1am get out!" Will pushed Hiromu with all the strength he could muster, muscles still fuzzy from sleep.

"Come on Osp-nya! Let me in!"

“No! Get lost!”

Will gave an almighty shove at the same moment that Hiromu stopped pushing altogether. They both stumbled and toppled into the corridor. Will lurched back up to his feet and steeled himself for an attack. Behind his back he heard the door lock click.

No attack came.

Hiromu stayed down on the carpet arranged himself to sit cross legged, looking at up Will with a false solemnity.

“Why are you here?” _Haven’t you taken enough?_ He didn’t say.

Hiromu had won fair and square and Will didn't ever want to be the kind of man that held that against him. He’d gone all out against Hiromu, fought every way he knew how. It’s what the belt had demanded. Devotion that made you slam the other man down as hard as you could. Fealty that shouted for blood. Hiromu had given as good as he got too. Matching Will hit for hit. Heart for heart.

“We wanted to see you!” Hiromu replied. When he smiled, every tooth in his mouth and muscle on his face participated with full enthusiasm.

“You’re the worst.” Will turned his back to him and tugged in vain at the door handle. It was locked.

Will stalked towards the elevator and Hiromu followed him, bouncing along at his heels.

“Mr Belt is unhappy.” Hiromu explained.

“Oh dear, what a shame.” Said Will jamming the button for the ground floor rapidly. “Well he’s not the only one.”

“We need to cheer him up!” Hiromu’s voice had a sing song quality to it, but Will knew better than to think he wasn’t being deadly serious.

“We?”

“We.” Replied Hiromu. “It’s hard for Mr Belt! All these changes and different friends!” Hiromu was petting the gleaming metal face in a soothing manner. “He needs time to acclimatize. You know how it is.” Will was quite certain he didn’t.

“If it’s all the same I think I’ll sit this one out. On account of you being off your head.” It was the wrong thing to say. Hiromu’s smiled tightened and his fingers curled closer around the title.

The elevator dinged, and they stepped out into the lobby. The front desk was empty. Will rang the little bell out front. No one came to rescue him. Hiromu rang it too.

“Looks like they’re on a break!” Hiromu said like he’d just bested Will again. He lifted the belt in front of Will's face, practically shoving it into his nose. “Mr Belt says he wants ice-cream! You’re coming too right?”

“Hiromu have you got a phone?” Will asked in a last-ditch attempt at getting back to his bed.

“Yes.”

“Can I use it?” He could call the New Japan office staff, they might have a spare room key. Or would at least know how to find whoever was meant to be working reception.

“You didn’t answer _my_ invitation.” Hiromu purred with the satisfaction of one who knows they have the upper hand. “Are you coming? Its only down the street and then afterwards… maybe I’ll be in a sharing mood.”

*

He was telling the truth. The ice-cream parlor was only down the street.

Hiromu was a strange opponent. Volatile and capricious. Every time Will thought they’d reached any kind of mutual understanding something new threw him off balance. In the ring and out, Hiromu was as unpredictable as a landmine and Will couldn’t help but like him despite it all.

As to what Hiromu wanted from him now, he couldn’t work out. He had the title and Will had gone back to being no one. There was no reason for Hiromu to keep messing with him. And yet the way that Hiromu ate his ice cream; letting it linger in front of his mouth, tongue gently rolling forward to lick it up, was so clearly a performance for Will's benefit that he was thrown for a loop once more. The manic smile that now played around Hiromu's mouth had been there mid-match as well. He didn’t seem angry exactly, but a fuse was burning inside him somewhere.

Hiromu dug out another scoop, raised it to his lips and licked it off without the spoon ever entering his mouth at all. Will sat equal parts entranced and mildly disgusted until his own ice-cream began to drip onto the table. It was delicious, though he couldn’t totally banish the thought of it being poisoned. He tried to eat it in as non provocative manner as possible on pure principle.

The shop was empty apart from the three of them. Hiromu had ordered a scoop of butterscotch for the belt. After he finished his own raspberry parfait he shoveled great dollops of ice cream onto its gleaming face. It melted fast, dribbling cream down the metal plate and Hiromu licked it off with his long, wet tongue.

"That is vile mate."

Hiromu carried on licking. Will fixed him with a look of naked revulsion but Hiromu held his gaze with a dead eyed stare of his own.

"I hope you're going to wash it afterwards."

"Cats wash by licking themselves." Hiromu commented brightly. "Do you think they're vile?"

"Well they're just cats." Will reasoned. "Its nature isn't it? Can't do much about it. But other people are going to have to touch that belt and now you've gone and put your tongue all over it."

He had put his body and soul into keeping that thing. And now it was being licked by a man who talked to inanimate objects.

Hiromu cocked his head and fed the belt another spoonful.

"Like, you wouldn't want to touch anything I'd licked, would you?" Said Will desperate for some common ground to build his case for why some objects just should not go in your mouth.

Hiromu picked up the spoon Will had been using and slid his lips over it. Soft raspberry red tongue gliding over the spoon as he licked it clean. Will felt kind of weird about that. It was a power move and no mistake.

He would have to remember tonight if he ever got a title shot again; Get the belt washed thoroughly. Of course, a little voice said in the back of his head, he might not ever get it back. At some point, whatever he did, the day would come in his life when he would never touch it again. Maybe that day had been and gone already.

Hiromu was watching him with fascination. As if Will was an optical illusion he couldn’t quite make out. The punchline to a joke hidden in the vaults of his memory. He slid the licked spoon back over the table.

“I don’t want it now! Keep it!”

“Does that mean now I’ve licked the title you don’t want it back?”

“Yeah right, it’s not going to be that easy.” Said Will with half-hearted defiance.

“If I lick you do I get to keep you?”

“Excuse me?!”

But Hiromu had heard something else. He held the belt to his ear once more, and once more he nodded as if he were really listening to it speak.

“Mr Belt says we’re going for burgers now.” Hiromu informed.

**

“Generally, you eat your main meal before your dessert.” Will told Hiromu as the man endeavoured to stuff an entire burger in his mouth at once. “In England we do anyway. Obviously, I don’t mean any disrespect. Like culturally and that.”

Hiromu nodded along, entire jaw moving up and down with the effort of chewing. They sat on a pair of plastic chairs outside the hole in the wall burger place and ate. Hiromu having ordered three burgers and dutifully sacrificed one to the belt already. It was probably famished. Will hadn’t fed it anything the whole time he was champion.

“Thanks for buying and everything.” Will continued, increasingly aware of his lack of adequate clothing now they were outside. “But I’m flying off in the morning, so I was wondering if we could perhaps go back to the hotel now?”

Hiromu shook his head and crammed in the rest of the burger. Cheeks bulging like an overfed hamster.

“No? Not yet? Mr Belt got something else on the bucket list, has he?”

Hiromu nodded emphatically.

***

Will was getting some strange looks in his dressing gown and socks, but Osaka was a big city and that afforded him the privacy of big cities the world over. The politeness that derives from everyone living under the shared pretence that other people simply aren’t there. An illusion of separation that holds up between bodies pressed together by narrow streets and packed trains.

There was no pretending that Hiromu wasn’t there. Will probably would have gotten more second looks if Hiromu hadn’t been there to draw them away. Red hair bouncing off his face when he leaped along from step to step. He was a man who demanded not to be overlooked.

The belt led them down wide roads and through narrow leafy ways that spiralled around buildings old and new. The direction they were going taking them to a markedly dingier part of town. A finger of fear prickled up Will’s spine again but again he dismissed it. Hiromu could have no reason to hurt him further tonight, he’d already had ample chance in the ring. All the same Will stopped for a moment to try and make out a street sign. No harm in trying to work out where the fuck he was. 

“Not much further.” Hiromu flashed a smile of blazing white teeth that made Will stomach tense up. “This place is worth the walk. When you’re champion you have to enjoy the finer things in life you know? Because when you don’t have a title you’re less than garbage.”

Will didn’t have the energy to argue.

****

The tea shop that Hiromu had been searching for was closed when they arrived. Perhaps that was unsurprising at 3am, Will thought.

“I’m the IWGP Jr Heavyweight Champion!” Hiromu yelled. “Open up!” He thumped against the wooden door. It didn’t budge.

“What a shame. Back to the hotel then?” Asked Will hopefully.

If he’d had the slightest clue where they were or had any money on him at all he would have long abandoned Hiromu and gone back by himself. Will’s bare socks were soaked through, and the warm heat of the Osaka day had long faded into a pleasantly cool night. It would have been even more pleasant if he weren’t only a dressing gown and a pair of socks away from stark naked.

Hiromu backed away from the door then ran up and kicked it hard. The door rattled on its hinges.

“Hiromu! What are you doing!? Stop it!”

Hiromu was backing up again for a second go at being a human battering ram. Will tackled him to the ground and the other man lay flat on his back laughing his head off.

A window lit up on the first floor above the shuttered tea shop.

“Come on let’s just go back alright? I’ll make you tea in the hotel room. I have some of those little packet things.” He pleaded.

Hiromu threw him off and wriggled out of Will grip. Will jumped in front of the door and Hiromu swayed from side to side trying to get by him, tongue lolling out in exhilaration.

“Come on Hiromu!”

Hiromu stopped dead, looking down at what Will was wearing as if it was his first time really seeing it.

“Osp-nya what happened to your shoes?!”

“What do you think?! They never left the hotel! They’re still locked in my room.” Said Will exasperated. He thought he could hear someone coming down the stairs.

“Why didn’t you say something? I would have carried you bridal style.” Will was suddenly aware of how close Hiromu was. Of the heat of his body.

The other man’s eyes were roving over him. Settling on where the cloth belt of the dressing gown had loosened, opening Will’s bare chest up to the outside air. It was stupid to feel self-conscious. He had nothing to be ashamed of and he was more covered up now than in the ring. But it was different. He tugged the belt tighter. Hiromu was still looking at him, his eyes inches away. Will felt the same prickle on his skin he had back at the hotel. Instinct screaming that he was about to get hit around the head.

“Are you cold Kitty? You can cuddle up in my bed and get cosy as can be.”

Hiromu’s hands wandered down to the belt of Will’s dressing gown and began to loosen the tie. Will leaned in, ostensibly to push Hiromu away from the door, knowing Hiromu wouldn’t budge and he would get closer to that warmth. That Hiromu would continue to undo him.

But a floorboard creaked in the building behind them and there was the unmistakable noise of a muffled bark and a dog’s paws scuffling on wood. They shared a moment of clarity and both broke out into a sprint as a key turned in the lock.

Will thought that if he ever managed to figure out what Hiromu wanted it was a sure sign he really had taken too many knocks to the head.

*****

The route back to the hotel was unfamiliar. Mr Belt riding proudly on his shoulder, Hiromu strolled with confidence in seemingly random directions. When he took them through an industrial district where the few scattered groups of people they’d been encountering diminished to none, the hair on Will’s skin stood on end. Only the streetlights were lit up as they walked through row upon row of dark warehouses. Will couldn’t shake the thought of people hiding in the thin gully's between them. The rest of LIJ waiting to tear him apart and leave him a bloody pulp.

For what? The more sensible part of his brain asked. Why would they? But though he told himself this again and again, the shadowy corners around him whispered of fists in the dark and of the long distance left to walk to anyone who might be inclined to rescue him.

Hiromu finally noticed Will lagging and waited for him to catch up. Something in his mood had shifted now, though Will couldn’t say why. His temper was winding again, waiting to be set off.

“Are you sure we’re not lost? You could check the GPS on your phone…?”

“Mr Belt knows the way.” Hiromu said in that cold, detached way he sometimes had. “No need to rush anyway Ospreay. You’re only going to sit in the dark and cry some more. How boring.”

Bit rude. Thought Will. It wasn’t even true. He hadn’t cried, not properly. He almost felt like it would be easier if he did. The tears were there behind his eyes and left unspilt they would drip down inside him, collecting into a hot little puddle of shame.

“Why did you ask me to come with you?”

“Mr Belt invited you. Not me.” Said Hiromu.

“So why did you agree?”

Hiromu erupted with harsh laughter. “Because I like you kitty.” He cackled. “Why else?” His eyes had gone hollow. Will shivered.

Hiromu led them up a bank of grass and onto a long bridge that arched over a river. He was certainly lost; They hadn’t crossed any water on the way. The city glittered around them in a swirl of light and colour. At least if Will was being led to his doom he’d gotten to see this. He was too exhausted to be afraid anymore. He stopped in the centre of the bridge and gazed out at the lights. Feeling small and irreverent in a surprisingly peaceful way. When it was plain he wasn’t following, Hiromu prowled back to meet him. Will had suspected he would.

He put a hand on Will’s shoulder, the other arm cradling the belt’s glossy silver surface. His fingers slid round to Will’s neck, lightly skimming across the bruised skin. Will couldn't find a way to interpret the gesture as anything other than a threat. What was Hiromu intending here? Will looked at the water rushing below and considered that maybe he knew the man at his back even less than he thought. How easy it would be for Hiromu to chuck him off the bridge and be done with him for good.

School had never been a strong point for Will. He’d shown up for lessons most of the time, sat at the back of the classroom and hoped not to get picked out. It had been a waiting game. Hours into minutes into seconds until he could be out the door. Wasted time. But right then on the bridge a fact from his physics textbook surfaced in his mind.

12 seconds is the time it takes for a falling person to reach terminal velocity.

The bridge wasn't high enough for that but the thought still stuck.

Will had known a minute from the end of the match that it was already over. The whole hall was chanting for Hiromu and he had nothing left to give them. He was going to lose, and he could no more stop it from happening than to halt gravity itself. In the moment the anger of it had make him wild and he fought with pure spite until he was driven into the mat and the fight left the last aching muscles of his body.

Curious fingers were still spidering up and down Will’s neck. Hiromu bunched up closer and Will waited frozen helpless for a blow to his head. For a kick to his stomach. For arms to lock around his waist and throw him down to meet the dark water below.

Hiromu had deceptively heavy hands. During the match they had smashed into him with ruthless force. Whether any of that power was still waiting to crash down upon on Will’s failing body he couldn’t tell. He looked into the predatory eyes before him and accepted that he didn’t know. He didn’t get it. Had not a chance of ever understanding.

Hiromu traced a lone finger up into Will's hair and down his forehead as if working out what line to chop might split him perfectly in two. Will was too tired to shove his hand off. He leaned back against again the barrier and closed his eyes.

"Hey!" Hiromu's voice was reproachful and he prodded Will hard in the chest. “Wake up!”

Will cursed in pain. The skin was still raw there, but he was too exhausted to do more than push at Hiromu feebly and try to back away further. It was no use, he was already pressed so hard into barrier it hurt. The cold wires of the chain link fence denting his bare legs.

“Just because you lost doesn’t mean you have to be so down about it!” Snapped Hiromu getting in his face once more. “It’s not the end. Grow up.” Hiromu kicked the fence suddenly, pitching out some of that violence Will had seen coiling inside him. “I lost everything that really mattered! For a year! Did I cry about it?!”

Hiromu pulled Will away from the fence by the neck of the dressing gown, bringing him close and then spinning away. “Well! Maybe I did cry about it!” He swung an arm out slapping the barrier but still holding Mr Belt tight to his chest. “But I never stopped caring! Lots of people lose! It’s no big deal! But oh no Hiromu I’m not in the mood tonight, I don’t want to get ice-cream with you tonight! Read the room Hiromu!”

Oh shit.

The fence got another kick and screamed its response in a rattle of a hundred metal chain links scraping.

“Even though this is the happiest night of your life?! I’m going to spend it whining about how I lost something I didn’t even care about in the first place!” Hiromu yelled out at the water rushing beneath, panting with the force of his own explosion.

This wasn’t about him at all. None of it was. Will thought he saw a flash of embarrassment but that couldn’t be right; Hiromu wasn’t capable of the feeling.

“That’s why you’re alone isn’t it?”

“I’m not alone.” Said Hiromu stubbornly, clutching the belt.

"Naito..." And Evil. And Sanada. They had all lost tonight. The Intercontinental and the heavyweight tag belts. They wouldn’t feel like celebrating any more than Will did.

“Mr Belt is important.” Said Hiromu hotly. Brushing his long hair out of his eyes. Will took a step towards him, away from the railing he had been pressed against. “Mr Belt is very very very important.” Some of the sing song tone was trickling back in. “He doesn’t get it!” Another kick to the fence that was all that kept them out of the water. "I care about them you know?! I can't just stop caring!" 

"W-what about Bushi?" Will hazarded an effort at reassurance. "He didn't lose right?"

"HE'S ON VACATION!" Hiromu screeched. "HE'S NOT EVEN HERE!" Will was glad they were on a bridge in the middle of a river because that would have woken up a ten story building. 

"Oh." 

The wind was getting up, whipping through Hiromu's hair. Will shivered as it blew around his bare knees and he took another step towards Hiromu. Close enough to touch him. Close enough to feel the warmth that still radiated from his body. 

"I love them and they just don't..." He trailed off, his voice so quiet now it was almost carried away on the wind.  

Frankly, the situation must be pretty dire if Hiromu had taken Will out because he thought he _understood_ him.

Hiromu was staring at him defiantly. Waiting for a dismissal. Will thought.

“Congratulations Hiromu.” He said belatedly. It was the right thing to say.

 


End file.
